Love is patient, love is kind, and I am not.

I was a T E R R I B L E mom yesterday… I’m never trophy mom material, but yesterday,… yesterday was BAD.

a little backstory…

My mental health is a shit show.

In reality, that’s why this blog exists; a place for me to let things out in hopes of making the internal load a little lighter.

And while my mental health has never been ideal, 2020 and the lockdowns were really ‘my time to shine’ as the ol’ saying goes. I was seven months postpartum, still breastfeeding, and barely keeping my head above water in the classroom, as we’d canceled school so many times already since I’d come back from maternity leave due to inclement weather and illness, which we thought at the time was flu, when COVID rocked our worlds and sent us home.

I was struggling immensely to create some kind of new normal for my now family of five. Struggling to help my big kids adjust to a new baby. Struggling to get down some kind of routine for my kids with school, for my students, for myself… The back and forth of being in and out of the classroom already made that a nightmare, but COVID plunged that nightmare right into the seventhring of Hell.

At the beginning of the lockdown, my husband was home with us, and that helped tremendously! But,… that didn’t last long. He has an office to himself, only three people are in his entire building, he has no contact with public, and he works for an organization that provides basic needs to the public. It was short lived before his employer decided those in his office had no reason to work from home. W

hat had been difficult became a daily hell.

I love my children, and I am eternally grateful for all of the positive things that covid brought with it for my children and I – for example, with my two older kids, I missed so much… at eight weeks postpartum with each of them, I had to return to the classroom. Covid gave me time with our youngest that I did not get with his siblings.

But…

I was essentially alone, seven months postpartum, and still under tremendous emotional and physical postpartum stress, and struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety. I was trying to relearn how to do my job and teach 100% project based courses on programs that were 100% foreign to me. I was keeping up with live class meet schedules for my own students, for my preschooler and first grader. I was trying to be a mom. I was trying to be a wife. I was trying to keep up with laundry for five people. I was trying to cook meals for my kids. I was trying to keep the house clean enough to be livable. Oh! And the newborn… I was trying to care for him. I was trying to keep him on ANY kind of schedule with nursing, with napping, with all the things.

I was doing this alone.

I couldn’t call my parents because they are immunocompromised, and what if one of us have it, and we’re asymptotic and expose them? What if I kill my parents because I was incapable of taking care of my kids myself?

I couldn’t call anyone, because what if we have this and don’t know, and we kill someone?

My husband was home in the evenings, and is an AMAZING dad and husband! But most days turned into long days for him, and for me, E V E R Y day was turning into chaos and a struggle to find ANY reason NOT to end my life.

Before I proceed, I need anyone who is still reading this mess to know that I sought help from my doctors, and things are better now.

But before getting that help,… I was trying to do all the things.

All the things seemed easy for everyone else.

It shouldn’t be difficult to have a little learning station set up for my kids to use their chrome books to attend daily meets with their classes, and to help the, with their work. It shouldn’t be difficult to have my chrome book open and ready to meet with my own students. It shouldn’t be difficult to get the baby up around the same time every morning, and to remember when he ate last, and how long he napped. It shouldn’t be difficult to keep the dishwasher and washer loaded with the dirty, and unload them once the wash is done. It shouldn’t be difficult to cook breakfast. It shouldn’t be difficult to keep track of time well enough to get lunch on the table.

Remembering to thaw thaw the fucking chicken for dinner shouldn’t be difficult.

It shouldn’t be difficult, with three beautiful, healthy children, a husband who adores me, my dream job, a kitchen and fridge full of food, a warm home, running cars, and steady income, to have a will to live.

But there I was, fixated on how I could make it look like a freak accident, or like it somehow happened naturally, or look ANY way other than why it really happened, so that my kids wouldn’t wonder why they weren’t reason enough to stay, or hate me for the rest of their lives because I CHOSE not to stay.

I fantasized about telling my husband I just needed to go out for a drive by myself to clear my head, and then hanging a left into oncoming traffic.…

I wondered what I could ‘take by accident’ when another ‘migraine’ hit.…

None of the things I was trying to do should’ve been difficult.

If I’d been doing just that one thing, or maybe even a couple of the things. But ALL the things? All the things are impossible! But I am a failure as a mother if I admit that, because we are all struggling, and I have to ‘suck it up’ and ‘figure it out’.

And friend,… I just couldn’t live up. By the end of the day, I was touched out, and if I was ‘Mommied’ one. more. time. my head would explode!

And my kids deserve better than that. My husband deserves better than that. And if I were dead, if I were out of the way, maybe he could find that for them.

It shouldn’t have felt like I was failing, because I’m only human, and we all have our limits.

A few months at home shouldn’t leave you with lasting trauma…. But here I am.

Now, fast forward to yesterday…

Two of my three children have tested positive for COVID in the last 11 days. I have been home with them during this quarantine, aside from four trips for retesting for those of us currently testing negative.

The PTSD is real, and it is REAL HEAVY right now…

I am using sick and personal days at work, so at least I don’t have to worry about being online and live for my students. But my now 6 and 8 year old still have to get their school work done. And that newborn is now a rough and rowdy toddler who is ‘all boy’, as they say, and FEARLESS!

The child who has not yet tested positive for covid, has just gotten over the flu, and now has strep.

Fevers are all over the place. Emotions are all over the place. Energy levels are all over the place.

My mind, is all over the place.

The baby did not sleep well the night before. I didn’t finish doing all the mom things and manage to get in bed until 1 am, and he was up and had climbed out of his crib and into our bed before 6 am, where he proceeded to thrash about struggling to find comfort, and never really got back to sleep.

I was already exhausted before the big kids even made it out of bed. I made them a big breakfast. I tried to be patient as they lollygagged about, ignoring me when I’d ask them something, or when they just weren’t listening. I’m ashamed to say that didn’t last long.

Love is what a mommy should be.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not dishonor others. Love is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs.

My kids couldn’t replace ‘love’ with ‘mom’ yesterday if they were being honest.

I yelled. I lost my temper. I had smart remarks. I was impatient. I quickly pointed out their mistakes…

I was the epitome of unlovable.

But at the end of the day, when my husband was finally home to help wrangle our toddler, and the big kids had settled in after carving our jack-o-lanterns, and we were playing our nightly rounds of Mario Kart, and conversing as we do… the conversation made its way to the topic of kindness, and I stated with no uncertainty that I had not been kind today. I told them that I was exhausted, and frustrated, and I just couldn’t keep up, and though that was not an excuse, that I had taken that out on them when I shouldn’t have. I told them that I had been NONE of the things that I expect of them, and that I was sorry for holding them to a higher standard than what I myself had been capable of today. They did not deserve to be treated as they had today, and that I’m sorry I’m not always a very good mommy.

Being apologized to by myself or my husband is not new for them, we own our mistakes when we make them. But something about what I’d said made them fall silent, and then A, our oldest, spoke up.

‘You’re the best mom in the world. Everybody has a bad day sometimes! Sometimes I lose my temper, too. I’m glad your our mom.’

Our daughter chimed in ‘you ARE a good mommy! I love you!’

I don’t deserve their goodness any more than they deserve my horrid excuse of motherhood… but I am so, so immensely grateful that when God decided to gift them to someone, that He chose me.

I hope I’m a lot like them when I grow up.